A cost-of-living scam where criminals send messages pretending to be from friends or family members who urgently need help paying bills, is on the rise, according to a bank. TSB recorded a 58% increase in “friends and family” scams in July compared with the same month a year earlier.
The upswing has been driven by scam requests for help paying bills, according to the bank, as surging living costs take their toll. TSB said its own research suggests that a £500 fraud loss would leave three-fifths of households struggling to afford food for more than a week.
The average loss in such cases is £1,500, according to the bank’s analysis, although the amounts can vary hugely, with the majority of scam attempts it looked at taking place on WhatsApp. In one case, a 71-year-old customer sent £1,700 to a fraudster following an urgent, emotive request claiming to be from his daughter needing money to help with bills.
